36 THENEWYORKER,NOVEMBER29, 2021
tougher. My head pounded, and my
pee turned the color of Berber tea. I
had tried to drink plenty of water the
previous day, but clearly it had not been
enough. (I concluded, too, that an in-
sufficiently rehydrated dessert I’d eaten
the previous evening—an egg-custard
imitation—had sucked some moisture
out of me.) I resolved to stop more
often and drink more. Given my G.P.S.’s
unreliable battery supply, I also used
the rests to pay attention to my paper
maps. It was pleasing to reacquaint
myself with analog navigation, and
my compass replaced my G.P.S. around
my neck.
The final stretch of the journey was
along a dry riverbed that widened as it
descended. There were a few houses,
and occasionally I exchanged greetings
with residents. All of them offered me
tea or water, but I had plenty to drink,
and I wanted to reach my destination
before the heat became unbearable. I
smiled, declined, shared pleasantries,
and moved on. The riverbed was now
fringed by palm trees, and flanked by
vertical slabs of rock that threw shade
into the valley.
I could see from my maps that I had
only a few hundred yards to walk. Sud-
denly, I did not want the experience to
end. I slowed down, to revel in my last
minutes of simplicity. Eventually, I
rounded a bend, and saw Asher perched
on one of the escarpments overlooking
the valley. In front of me was a tiny vil-
lage called Ichazzoun. After another
hundred paces, I saw the Toyota. Asher
scurried down from his vantage point
to meet me.
“Damn good effort,” he said. “You
should be very proud.”
Childishly, I was.
T
he itineraries of Get Lost packages
suggest that rich clients will accept
privation as long as it is followed by
luxury. After my expedition, I spent two
nights at a chic hotel called Dar Ahlam.
It’s situated at the edge of the desert,
in a two-hundred-year-old casbah sur-
rounded by palm and almond trees. The
hotel has fourteen rooms and about a
hundred staff members.
For many people, Dar Ahlam is
Heaven: every guest I saw wore a be-
atific smile. The staff could not have
been more accommodating. Nothing
was too much trouble for them—the
moment you thought about a drink, it
was in your hand. The food was a thou-
sand times better than “Burger and
Beans.” The pool was exactly the right
temperature. I had a massage. But I
didn’t relish my time there. The hotel
was full of Western couples who were
either on their honeymoon or taking
the trip of a lifetime. I was seulement un.
There was no restaurant at the hotel.
Instead, at mealtimes, individual tables
were scattered throughout the grounds.
I always dined alone, out of sight of
other guests. I was also encouraged to
leave the hotel for lunch, and for a sun-
set drink. Both trips required a drive to
a picturesque location, where staff
waited on me as I sat by myself. I felt
mortified at the effort that had gone
into pouring me a glass of wine in the
desert. I longed for a cheap, noisy bar,
and the chance to swap stories with
strangers. Dar Ahlam was as serene as
a monastery.
My adventure in the mountains had
ended more ebulliently. On the after-
noon that I arrived in Ichazzoun, there
was a wedding in the village. Four mu-
sicians performing at the ceremony had
heard about my trek, and they all came
to greet me, in matching white-and-
green outfits. They sang and clapped,
and formed an honor guard for me to
walk past, as a finish line. Imerhane
joined in with the clapping, a broad
smile on his face. It was a surreal, em-
barrassing, joyous moment.
When the music stopped, Asher
told me that he had been tracking
me the entire way on foot—at a dis-
tance of about five hundred yards. He
had even slept outdoors with Imerhane
on the second night. Realizing that
Asher looked as dirty as me, I laughed.
I had never realized that I was being
followed. (Later, I wondered whether
some of the sounds that I had occa-
sionally heard on the trek had been
Asher displacing rocks.) He said that
the text I sent on the first evening, about
my unexpected nighttime visit, had
prompted a string of phone calls be-
tween Imerhane and people in the vil-
lage nearby. Imerhane had been told
that my visitors were only worried about
my well-being: they were not accus-
tomed to lone hikers sleeping outside.
I wondered why Asher had not sentsome words back to reassure me. He
said that he didn’t want such messages
to become a “crutch.” The only time
Asher was actually concerned about
me was when his G.P.S. showed me
veering off course during the middle
of the first day. There were some cliffs
near that part of the route. When Asher
reached a vantage point, he saw me
having tea with the local men, and his
anxiety faded.
My experience had been both real
and extremely theatrical. The moun-
tains and the rocks were solid enough
to have broken my bones. But I was
able to travel as I did only because a
group of experts had prepared a route
customized for my level of fitness, and
had monitored my every move so that
I could feel danger without actually
being endangered. There was a touch
of “Westworld” to Get Lost. And I
hadn’t been truly disconnected; rather,
I had been given the luxury of living
for a short while under the illusion that
I was. The adventure was every bit as
confected as my hotel stay.
Nevertheless, my hike in the moun-
tains was deeply gratifying. Asher and
I had formed a bond, even though I
did not see him during my two days
alone. In my giddy debriefing, we talked
about the route, the overnight thun-
derstorm, and the noisy dog, which had
also chased him. I detected no insin-
cerity when he remarked, “You and me
are the same tribe.”
All of us were invited to the wed-
ding. I was as filthy as a chimney sweep,
but nobody seemed to mind. Beside a
single-story mud house, about fifty men
were sitting in the shade, some of them
dressed in formal clothes. There were
no women outside, but we could hear
a group of high voices indoors, sing-
ing to the newlyweds. We were invited
to take off our shoes, and to sit in the
shade. Asher and I sat with our backs
against a cool wall. Everyone looked
happy to see us. A group of kids came
near to take a closer look at the for-
eigners who had just walked out of the
mountains. I made faces at them and
they giggled. A steaming dish of lamb
couscous emerged at a low table in front
of us, along with glasses of tea. We ate
like starvelings.
“My God, that’s delicious,” Asher
said, and he was right.